


Bad Idea Made Good

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Kissing, Kissing instead of talking, M/M, POV First Person, POV Peter, Post-Foxglove Summer, feelings happen despite themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes really bad ideas are the best ideas there are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Idea Made Good

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Foxglove Summer.

It happened because, as usual you might think if we'd ever met, I wasn't paying attention. Truth be told I'd not been paying attention to the things right in front of me for a good while now, but every time I focused on that I felt a stabbing pain right between my shoulder blades and gave the whole thing up as a bad lot.

My point, and yes I had one, was that I'd been thinking a lot about the world outside the Folly but not really about what was going on inside it. I knew intellectually that Nightingale felt Lesley's betrayal as keenly as someone who'd taken on an apprentice and then had them throw their oath back in his face, but Nightingale was hardly her friend, he didn't know her well enough to be really upset. At least that's what I told myself. And god knows how Molly feels about anything on any given day.

I suppose the truth is I'd come to take Nightingale's age and stoicism for granted. As if he didn’t feel things the way the rest of us normally ageing mortals do.

Which is why I was so surprised to find him in the magical library, staring at a piece of paper in his hand, his face showing the kind of emotion that made my heart clench.

I must have made a sound because the next instant he was examining the paper with only professional curiosity.

“I suppose having her do research for him was to be expected,” Nightingale said.

I took that as permission to step forward and, because I never know when not to push, made sure I was significantly closer to him than I would otherwise stand.

Nightingale gave me some truly impressive side-eye but merely passed me the paper without saying anything.

It was Lesley's handwriting all right. It looked like she'd been doing some research into werewolves, which I couldn't see boding well for anyone.

“I've no idea,” Nightingale said, neatly answering the question I hadn't even formed yet. “I hope even I would have noticed werewolves running around in London, but then what do I really know about anything?”

He moved away to put the book back on the shelf while I laid Lesley's note flat on the table and decided to just ignore his last comment for fear of starting a conversation that might lead to a discussion about feelings, and the fact that we had them.

“What made you pick that book up anyway?” I asked.

“Hmm? Oh, I was looking for something else and I noticed it was upside down.”

“Really? That was _careless._ ”

“Yes, well...” Nightingale began to agree, before he caught on. “You think that was deliberate?”

I shrugged. “Lesley's pretty smart,” I said.

For some reason that made Nightingale frown and he stared at me for a few seconds too long before nodding. “You start on that shelf, we'll meet in the middle.”

Glad to have something to do that didn't require looking at my boss I started to move along the stacks of books, keeping my eyes peeled for anything that looked out of the ordinary. I could hear Nightingale murmuring to himself every time he found an upside down book and I realised with a jolt that Nightingale never normally made noise simply to fill the silence, and whatever the hell was going on, he was just as affected.

It took just under an hour to find all the books – ten in total – and to lay them out on the table open to the pages Lesley had folded down (much to Nightingale's obvious annoyance).

“No one has any respect for books these days.”

“You sound like Postmartin," I told him, to which he only murmured assent.

Molly appeared in the doorway and Nightingale looked up. “We'll be along for tea shortly,” he told her, and one day I'd get around to asking him how he could always know when she entered a room and what she wanted without having any idea why she refused to leave the building.

“Do they have anything in common?” I asked. I could get the gist of the Latin books but a couple of them were in languages I didn't even recognise...which begged the question if I couldn't, how the hell could Lesley?

“Mostly myths and sagas about magical creatures,” Nightingale said. “Some fae, unicorns, kelpie, and these two,” he pointed to the smallest of the volumes, “deal in Native American lore about skin-walkers.”

“Makes sense,” I said, thinking about the Faceless Man's proclivities. “Do you think he could fix her face with these?”

Nightingale didn't answer for long enough that I thought perhaps he hadn't heard and was just about to ask again, when he quickly closed all of the books, slamming them shut hard enough that I nearly jumped.

“I don't believe so, no,” he finally answered, as if we'd merely been discussing the weather. He stood staring at the books a little longer and I suddenly wanted to ask him if he was okay, but told myself that that way madness lay.

Instead when he turned to say something, I kissed him.

Yeah, _I know._

I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised. Well, okay, Nightingale was probably more surprised, but not by a lot.

“What -?” he asked as he took a step back, but he didn't get any closer to forming a proper sentence – I'm not sure even he knew what he was going to ask just then – because I stepped back into his personal space and drew him into another kiss, this time hopefully signalling that it was a deliberate move and I hadn't just completely lost my mind.

If I'd been thinking properly I might have worried about the consequences of kissing my boss and teacher but I wasn't paying any attention to that. Just like I hadn't been paying attention to the fact that I'd sometimes become sidetracked in practice by thinking of ways to get Nightingale to smile, or take crazy risks because I wanted to protect him from having to take them for me.

Also, if I'd been paying proper attention, I'd have realised that not only was Nightingale kissing me back, but he had also pushed me up against the bookshelves and I was so hard I was in real danger of coming right there and then.

(If you’d told me at that moment that I should pay more attention to what was going on in front of me, I'm not sure I would have agreed).

“This is an incredibly bad idea,” Nightingale said, even as he pressed kisses along my jaw, and using far more syllables than a man who was so easily taking me apart should really be allowed.

“Huh uh,” I replied, delighting in the chuckle that escaped from Nightingale at my dazzling display of eloquence.

I was saved from trying to make a coherent sentence, or worse, begging him not to stop, by a kiss that left me breathless and made my toes curl. And then he undid my belt with one hand and it didn't take long for his talented fingers to take me apart completely.

I did manage to keep hold of his arm though, before he moved away, even though my whole body felt wrung out.

“You, you,” I said, as I pulled him closer, clearly demonstrating some high level vocabulary.

Nightingale looked surprised enough that I had time to wonder just what kind of people he'd done this with before, but then I focused on the task at hand. It wasn't as effortless as Nightingale's touch had been – a few fumbles in my teenage years was really the only practical experience I had, apart from touching myself, obviously, but that apparently didn't matter to Nightingale, not when he came with a low groan that almost had me hard again, and then slumped against me.

Of course, another good reason why you should never lose your concentration in the Folly is because you never know when or where Molly is going to pop up.

Nightingale noticed her first, of course, but rather than step away as I'd half-feared, he very deliberately put a hand under my t-shirt and gently stroked the skin there. Then he moved to rest his forehead against mine, and our eyes locked.

“Another ten minutes if you don't mind, Molly,” he said, still looking at me.

I didn’t hear her leave, I never do, but once I'm aware of her presence I'm generally pretty attuned to her absence too.

“So,” I said, and then stopped, hoping he'd fill in the gaps.

“This does rather complicate matters considerably,” Nightingale said, “but I find on the whole that I'm inclined not to mind.”

It took me a moment to parse that out, but once I had I found I was grinning, and Nightingale was looking more pleased than I'd seen him, well, ever probably.

“Is Molly going to be all right with this?” I asked. I couldn't help but notice he'd yet to remove his hand from my waist.

“We may need to dine out for a while,” he said. “It's been...quite some time since my...since...” He stopped, and I'd swear he was blushing.

Rather than help him out though, I just raised an eyebrow, something I'd been practising for a while now. It got a small huff of laugher, as I'd hoped.

“It's been a while since my dalliances have lasted longer than a night,” he said, all in a rush, but with a defiant tilt of his head as if daring me to judge him which, just, no.

I kissed him again, then, just because I could and because no matter what crazy thing I did, or who I did it with, Nightingale had never once judged me for it. Which is not something I could ever say about Lesley.

Nightingale looked a little more settled when we broke off the kiss, and I felt something shift in me too, though I promised myself I'd examine that later, when I had the right amount of time to devote to it.

“We really shouldn’t keep Molly much longer,” Nightingale said, and I had to agree, if only because I was starting to feel uncomfortably sticky.

“I'll just....” I said, motioning down at my trousers.

“Quite,” Nightingale replied, finally removing his hand and stepping a little away. “Five minutes?”

I nodded, not sure I could talk just then, as all the ways this could go wrong started pressing themselves into my consciousness. Because this meant something, made my world seem right, just like finding out about magic had. Just like, I realised then, just like Nightingale had always made me feel, but I'd been too distracted by everything else that I hadn't noticed.

But I'd noticed now. And if ever I needed a reminder to keep focused on what was really important, I couldn't think of a better one. And nor, judging by the looks I received from both Nightingale _and_ Molly as I ran up the stairs to get cleaned up, could any one else who really cared about my happiness.  



End file.
